Kommersant spoke with residents of the Belgorod border region

Constant shelling and attempts to break through by sabotage groups – this was March for residents of the border areas of the Belgorod region. Many were forced to flee home, leaving behind all their property. Regional authorities resettle such people in temporary accommodation centers (TAC). Kommersant correspondent Emilia Gabdullina arrived in Stary Oskol and talked with evacuated residents of the Grayvoronsky urban district.

From Belgorod to Stary Oskol it takes about two hours by car. Several temporary accommodation centers have been opened here for residents of the region who have fled dangerous border areas. TAP addresses are not publicly disclosed “for security reasons,” the coordinator of one of these points tells a Kommersant correspondent. For the same reason, she refuses to say how many people they have accommodated – noting that the facility is already almost full: “But this does not mean that our doors are closed. We are moving in relatives of those who already live in our TAP.” The coordinator assures that the center can cope with the workload – people are provided with food, clothing, hygiene products and everything they need: “Doctors are on duty in the TAP territory around the clock, and psychologists work from eight in the morning to five in the evening. In general, everyone helps – from the authorities who organize the activities of the TAP, to volunteer associations and simply concerned citizens.”

Children of different ages run around on the site in front of the temporary detention center, adults walk dogs and pet cats – or simply smoke on benches, communicating with fellow sufferers.

And in the building itself it’s like a children’s party – loud, cheerful music is playing in the corridor, animators in costumes of cartoon characters are jumping. “These are also volunteers,” explains the coordinator. “We work with children every day, they draw, read, and play. We hope that after adaptation we will launch educational activities and the children will begin to learn.”

There are three types of living rooms – with 2, 8 and 16 beds. They really are almost completely full. In 8- and 16-bed rooms, people sleep on bunk beds: elderly people on the bottom, children and teenagers on the top.

The distance between the beds is in most cases modest – no more than half a meter; The rooms are quite stuffy.

“The conditions are wonderful,” insists the elderly woman. “We are very grateful. The main thing is that we are safe now. And where we came from was hell.”

Most of the residents of this temporary accommodation center are residents of the Grayvoronsky urban district. As Kommersant wrote earlier, it was they who had to endure the most powerful shelling in the tenth of March. Then, from March 14, enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups (DRGs) tried several times to enter Kozinka and the village of Spodaryushino. Later, on March 18, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that almost 600 people had been evacuated from the district. A Kommersant correspondent learned from the residents of Grayvoron that they left their homes on different days – some left already on March 12-13, while others hoped until the last minute that the situation would improve. “I thought that I needed to leave, on the 16th – there was a lot of noise, it was scary. No general evacuation was announced; people left on their own or through volunteers. Volunteers helped us leave on the 18th,” said a resident of Grayvoron, who lives in the temporary detention center with her daughter. “They brought us from home to the basement of the city palace of culture and sports, then to Novoborisovka. Just then the shelling began in Belgorod, so we waited for about forty minutes in a shelter, and then came here – I have relatives here.”

In another room, a Kommersant correspondent met residents of the village of Kozinka. “My husband, children and cat left on March 15 in our car. Before that, we waited in the basement for several hours – they shot heavily. Then we took a risk and went on our own,” the woman says, holding back tears. “We had a clear position – to stay on the land of our ancestors until the end.” But it became unbearable. Nothing is known about the fate of our house. Our cat is the only thing that was saved.” She says her neighbors left the same day “in armored buses.”

Another woman confirms that on March 15, local authorities tried to take them out of Kozinka three times. “Before, we didn’t think about leaving because there was no such nightmare as that day. Then they fired at the houses with Grads!” – she recalls. As a result, she and her neighbors had to sit in the basement for about ten hours – “the most terrible hours of my life” – until they were evacuated: “Gladkov personally came. And “Baba Yaga” (a massive drone of the Ukrainian Armed Forces) hung over our house.— “Kommersant”). We just got on the bus and drove off, and it fell.” But it turned out that even in such conditions, not all residents of Kozinka agreed to be evacuated. According to the women, now there is no communication, no electricity, no gas in the village, but some of their friends did not want to leave their homes. More precisely, basements. “The head of the rural settlement begged them to leave. He said that they were all risking their lives. But they say “no” – that’s all,” Kommersant’s interlocutor worries.

“I left home on a bicycle on the 13th or 14th. To the sound of a cat in a backpack – and off I went. There is no gas, no electricity – what to do there,” says a young man from Kozinka. “I still have friends there – one is a sailor, the other is a cop. They sit there without electricity, without gas in the basement. As soon as I left, I called them and told them that it was possible to leave. But they didn’t want to. They gave them humanitarian aid, and somehow they live.”

There are also Belgorod residents in the TAP. A young woman with her four-year-old son left for Stary Oskol on March 14. “The missile danger was endless, falling next to us, for two days we sat with our son in the vestibule of the apartment. The child has no fresh air, no peace,” she explains why she decided to move to the temporary detention center. “The child has already adapted, he has many friends here, he likes it here.” The Belgorod resident herself is a teacher; she teaches lessons remotely, right from her room. Other TAP residents told a Kommersant correspondent that they work for private individuals who, amid shelling, closed or suspended their businesses; evacuated state employees are promised to keep their full salaries.

The people with whom the Kommersant correspondent spoke admit that they are not making plans yet.

They don’t know when they will return home—or if there is anywhere to return. “My house is no longer there,” says an elderly woman from Kozinka. “I have a son in the Moscow region – I’ll go to him. And the rest don’t know what to do next. What are the plans here… We ran in what we stood in.”